Sun/Oracle plans - don't get excited says MS

Francis Reay, Microsoft's NT Server product manager argues that despite the duo's claims IT managers need only look to the past to notice a recurrent pattern of broken promises. "We've been here before," says Reay. "The NC debate got stuff on the agenda, which is great... but it never took off."

Sun CEO Scott McNealy and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison said Monday that they are working on a system where the OS is virtually invisible and that their new strategy for accessing data through a network is better than Microsoft's plans to put mini-databases on every desktop. Reay believes the Oracle/Sun master plan is fundamentally flawed and typical of Ellison's anti-Microsoft crusade. She says, "whether the rest of the industry like it or not, the fact is that over 80 percent of desktops in the corporate environment run Windows applications and I don't believe it is responsible for any of us in a vendor position to say, `take those applications away and deploy this new technology' ... that's not appropriate."

Turning her attention to Ellison's continued berrating of Microsoft, Reay says, "in terms of the NC debate, Oracle has disbanded the division that was going to deliver the NC and both Oracle and Sun haven't delivered on their promises. So, unless they're resurrected, my position is that they can't deliver... their track record is flawed."

Sun and Oracle have been invited to respond to this article.